I had a girl from Basingstoke in England come and stay with us once in 2012 and when she was planning her trip she casually said ……”If we hire a car at Uluru (Ayers Rock) in Central Australia and leave at 8.00am what time in the afternoon will we get to Adelaide”? After I finished laughing I said “If you add another day you should make it by 5.00pm on the second day”!!

People from Europe have no concept of the size, the scale of Australia. To drive across Australia from Sydney to Perth is longer than a drive from London in England to Cairo in Egypt!

This is a trip I do 3 times a year from Adelaide in South Australia to Sydney on the East coast of Australia. By the shortest road route it is 1,360 Kms, (845 miles). And all I am actually driving is across the bottom corner of the continent.

Now if you drive consistently at the country road speed limit of 110 Kph (67 miles per hour) and have 2 stops of 15 minutes each along the way it would take you 14 + hours to drive that distance. I just recently did it in a single drive, I left Wollongong on the east coast at 7.30 am and I arrived home at Mt Barker that evening at 8.00 pm after gaining back 30 minutes crossing the border from Eastern standard time to central standard time ……a 13 hour drive.

I had 2 toilet stops of less than 5 minutes each and ate as I drove. I can tell you that is a serious drive to do in one day, particularly when you have to be ever vigilant for wildlife (Kangaroos, Emu’s) that might stray onto the road surface.

Anyone who can drive from Melbourne to Sydney in 9–10 hours having a couple of stops along the way is seriously driving at the speed limit I can assure you!

The distance, for you backwoods Americans, from Sydney CBD to Melbourne CBD is 545 miles. The rest of the world know it to be 876 km.

Most know it as a 9 hr drive. But only if you don’t eat, drink, poop pee or sleep.

Our max speed is 66 mph 110 kph, road works/tree arboring can be 40 or 80 kph. In addition, there are, at any time, hundreds of B DOUBLES, i.e. Semis towing 2 trailers. All of those trucks are doing about 60 mph. It is normal for any single car to be surrounded by 2 or 4 Semis doing car speeds. How more accidents don’t happen is probably because all of us are doing sensible, and monitered, speeds. 60 – 65ish mph. 2or 3 kph above limit is not unheard of.

The rest you can work out yourselves. But a clue. Very few people need a 7 litre pick-up truck. But the odd moron buys one anyway.

One more clue. Brake testing/ road rage is virtually non existent in OZ. Getting a .45 cal pistol in our faces is a “once every 100 year” event anywhere on this island of about 3 million Sq miles & 27,000,000 pop. It has NEVER happened AFAIK.

Not many Aussie drivers are the human equivalent of a “silverback ape”. That was your last clue.